


Horror Movie

by Randomly_Rusted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-20
Updated: 2010-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-15 14:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomly_Rusted/pseuds/Randomly_Rusted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft is scared of horror movies. No really! Honest! It isn't just an excuse for... Well maybe it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horror Movie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt:
> 
> <http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/3114.html?thread=8720682#t8720682>

It was a latish evening at Baker Street. Chinese food, a selection of DVDs, fewer than usual body parts on available flat surfaces (we shall say nothing of the bathroom cupboard) and it would seem a pleasant evening would be had.

The case was over, the baddies more or less collared, John and Sherlock could have a good evening in, except for one fact.

  
Well, two actually, as coming in the door without so much as "and by the way of course I have keys" was Mycroft Holmes, followed by DI Lestrade who wasn't looking as embarassed as he bloody well should have been given the circumstances.

But since he'd been..umm... involved with Mycroft (John, who despite what the restaurantiers of Londom thought, was straight, refused to think about what that entailed. Straight men don't like to think about that at all as a rule.) he tended to be utterly unflappable when Mycroft did things Lestrade should be embarassed about.

OK, Mycroft didn't tend to do things-your-companion-should-be-embarassed-about to nearly the level that Sherlock did, but Lestrade was hardly embarassed at all and John was pretty evenly spread between envy of his composure and hatred of same.

"Ah Sherlock. You are home. Good. We need to discuss a few things about the case."

"No we don't. You might, I plan to sit back and watch a movie"

With that he got a rather disturbing look of glee on his face. John had seen it before and it usually meant Sherlock was about to do something utterly cracked and Holmesian and no one who wasn't a member of that family was going to be safe. Or understand until too late.

John braced himself. It might be the start of one of those verbal battles that non-Holmes mortals understood one sentence in three of. It might involved sudden rushing around London. It wasn't going to involve gunshots (John hoped) but given the latest round of experiments it might well involve poisons, untraceable and otherwise.

But no.

What it appeared to involve was a DVD of "Dawn of the Dead". Which was a fairly solid zombie flick it's true, but it didn't seem to warrant the look on Sherlock's face.

Or, it would seem, on Mycroft's.

At first there was nothing different in the elder Holmes's expression. Then, as Sherlock fast forwarded to where the action started, Mycroft flicked a look at the screen, then looked away rather firmly.

"Sherlock, I need to discuss with you the..." Someone had just had their face eaten. The slurping noises were a bit over the top and all but still... That shouldn't have bothered Mycroft!

Sherlock looked at his brother, a happy and yet utterly evil expression on his face and said "Oh look! They'll be trapped!"

That seemed to make up Mycroft's mind. He turned on his heel and said "There's no talking with you in this mood Sherlock!" and headed for the door. Lestrade looked at Sherlock, looked at the screen (no one was dead or undead at the moment, it was some Exposition) looked at the vanishing Mycroft, shrugged, said "Zombie flicks. About as interesting as slasher flicks, see enough of that at work" and followed his partner down and out.

  
"Ah hah!" yelled Sherlock, jumping up in rapture. "It worked! It worked! I had thought he was becoming immune, but it worked!"

"What did?"

"Horror movies. Ever since Mycroft was a boy he has hated them. They really do scare him. He hates that! So whenever I wanted him to leave me alone I'd play one. It hasn't worked for a while, but maybe Zombie movies are too new for him to have learned to tune them out. Must make sure we have one in the flat at all times!"

John sighed. Minds the size of a planet with horribly large chunks of those minds still stuck at the primary school level. Both of them!

"Well you can keep it as a Mycroft-deterrent, *I* want to watch something funny tonight."

Mycroft and Lestrade returned home, Lestrade having noticed the odd sidelong glance....

"So" he said, pouring the wine "What was that about then?"

"Sherlock was in no mood to talk, I wouldn't have been able to get anything out of him. Once he put that ridiculous movie on I realised that. He wanted to chase me away"

"And he decided to do that by playing a DVD? Instead of answering in cryptic crossword clues or just saying 'boring' to every question?"

"He is convinced I am scared of horror movies. When I was much much younger I was a little disconcerted by them, but I grew out of it. Sherlock, being the selfabsorbed little nuisance that he is never realised that. So he brings them out as a sort of nuclear deterrent. I play along with it because if he realised they didn't work he might try something else!"

"But you still don't like them I take it? I don't mind the occasional one, but only occasional."

  
Mycroft looked at him again "Oh I'm sure I could watch the occasional one. Even if I might be a bit... scared."

Lestrade suspected something about that look.

"Scared?" he said, playing with his wine glass and absently (yeah right!) licking a stray drop of wine from the rim.

"Oh yes. Terribly. Makes me curl up on the couch and want to hide. Preferably behind someone. You know, to feel protected."

Lestrade had seen Mycroft Holmes face down armed Irish terrorists and spinster Departmental Secretaries, he was not convinced the man knew what fear was.

(And if you think the ones with the guns were more frightening you haven't worked in the civil service! Lestrade had 20 years in, and between fanatics with guns and bombs and women with blue rinses, reading glasses, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of The Regulations, he'd take the explosions every time))

However... As he had previously told both Holmes brothers, he wasn't stupid.

So... "I can see that, so if someone was on the sofa " he said, suiting action to words "you would tend to...?"

"Oh I might start like this...." And also suiting action to words, Mycroft sat next to Lestrade on the sofa, upright, relaxed, leaning lightly onto Lestrade's shoulder, just like hundreds of times before.

"And when the movie starts?" said Lestrade, having located and inserted a suitable disk (his, of course) into the player.

"Oh I doubt much would change in the beginning, although if the credits had some unsettling parts I might.." and his hand stole into Lestrade's.

Lestrade obligingly squeezed the hand, and covered it with his other one. They sat through Jonathan Harker's journey, Lestrade stroking Mycroft's hand when the werewolf howled. As the coach journey got darker, Mycroft scrunched closer to Lestrade, and as the tension mounted Lestrade (selfless this man, selfless!) wrapped his arm around Mycroft's shoulder in a suitably comforting and protective manner.

When the vampire first appeared, Mycroft covered his eyes and Lestrade quickly learned that was his cue to cuddle closer and perhaps make gentle strokes through Mycroft's hair. And if he was rewarded for that by a sound that while it was definitely a whimper was not one of fear, well who was there to know?

And if the closeness and snuggling continued through the non-frightening bits well that was just conservation of energy.  

When the vampire rose up from the coffin in the ship, Mycroft ended up on Lestrade's lap, an imposition the dectective bore with great fortitude (although he did shift a bit so Mycroft's hipbones didn't dig in).  The turning of Lucy, the chases, and the final confrontation required much reassuring stroking of back and hair, and strong protective arms defending the poor scared Mycroft from the horrors on screen.

All in all a successful evening!

You might think that this is a silly game for two grown men to play. If so you clearly aren't someone whose partner has a stressful and difficult job, who spends all day shouldering great responsibility and deserves to have some silly, happy, enjoyable time on the sofa with a lover and a movie.

As both Mycroft and Lestrade were such people, you will just have to cope!

And you must live with the fact that gradually the household acquired more horror DVDs. Especially ones with good music cues, because that made the proper snuggling much easier to.. umm.. orchestrate.

As for Sherlock, he was disappointed that Mycroft had acquired an immunity to Zombie movies so quickly. The next time he tried that trick, Mycroft just looked at Lestrade, Lestrade looked back, they shared a look he could not interpret (although John could, so it was probably more like would not) and Mycroft kept right on doing whatever it was Sherlock had wanted him to stop doing.

He wasn't sure what to do next, hopefully Hollywood would come out with a new horror genre that might have more scaring power.

Oddly, Lestrade was hoping the same.

**Author's Note:**

> I have never seen Dawn of the Dead. But it is a zombie movie so of course someone's face has been eaten! And of course they are trapped somewhere surrounded by zombies wanting to eat their brains. And of course there will be Exposition. I know how these things work!


End file.
